Best TIFF Films

Can You Believe These 30 Classic Films All Premiered At The Same Festival?

Every year, on the first Thursday after Labor Day, Oscar season unofficially begins. Only it doesn’t kick off in Hollywood, but a couple thousand miles northeast and across the border: in Toronto.

Originally founded as The Festival of Festivals — a collection of the best movies from the best film festivals around the world — in recent years, the Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF, as it’s known) has evolved into a veritable Oscar campaign launching ground. Six out of the last seven People’s Choice Award Winners (the fest’s major prize) have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture, with three of them ultimately taking home Hollywood’s most coveted statue. So in other words, a lot of great movies have passed through Toronto on their way to award season glory since the festival’s inception in 1976.

And with the 2015 edition of TIFF beginning September 10th, here are our picks for 30 of the best of the best to premiere at the festival over the past four decades. (As for which of this year’s crop of movies deserves to join them, we’ll just have to wait and see.)

A River Runs Through It

When you think of Robert Redford and film festivals, there’s a 99.9% chance you think of Sundance, aka the one he both helped found and named after his most famous character. But when it came time for Redford to debut his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, the Sundance Kid went to Toronto. And the decision turned out to be a smart one: a successful TIFF premiere and a career-making performance from a young Brad Pitt helped launch the touching, beautifully-shot period drama about fathers, sons, and fishing to three Oscar nominations and one win for Best Cinematography.

Rudy

One of the classic underdog stories in all of sports, Rudy was something of an underdog itself when it premiered at TIFF in 1993: a sentimental sports movie from the director of Hoosiers competing for attention against De Niro’s directorial debut A Bronx Tale and Blue, the first in Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski’s acclaimed Three Colors trilogy. But much like its title character, Rudy hung in there, overcoming long odds to become known as one of the best and most inspirational sports movies ever made, along with one of the only movies you and your buddies will ever openly admit to crying during.

Crash

Trust us, we’re not trying to start another Crash versus Brokeback Mountain debate here. See, unlike Brokeback, which kicked off its Oscar run elsewhere before playing at Toronto, Crash made its official world premiere at TIFF leading up to that infamously controversial Best Picture upset. And melodrama aside, that fact, along with its strong performances from an A-list ensemble cast and well-constructed series of interweaving narratives, makes Paul Haggis’ directorial debut deserving of a spot among TIFF’s best, no matter what you may think of its Oscar worthiness.

Almost Famous

Almost Famous may have been a box office disappointment, considering the massive success of Jerry Maguire, but Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical account of his early days as a teenage rock journalist for Rolling Stone remains one of the finest films to ever debut at TIFF. Near universal praise from critics translated to a successful awards season run, and thanks to its touching coming-of-age story and expertly curated soundtrack, Almost Famous went on to win an Oscar, Golden Globe and a Grammy, as well as attain instant cult classic status.

Nightcrawler

A number of strong performances had critics buzzing out of TIFF in 2014: three out of the five eventual Oscar nominees—– including winner Eddie Redmayne — had their films screen at the fest. But few got more ink than Jake Gyllenhaal’s resurgent turn as an unflinching sociopath who finds the perfect career as a stringer for the “if it bleeds, it leads” local Los Angeles news scene. A disturbing character study of a guy you want to look away from, but somehow can’t, Nightcrawler was rubbernecking distilled into movie form. And while Gyllenhaal had to settle for Golden Globe and SAG Awards nominations instead of the Oscar, the slick, seedy L.A.-set thriller earned writer/director Dan Gilroy a Best Original Screenplay nomination for his impressive directorial debut, and Nightcrawler a near constant presence on year-end Top 10 lists.

August: Osage County

One of the hottest tickets at 2013’s TIFF — thanks to its star-studded cast — August: Osage County simply wasn’t able to maintain its strong initial buzz; the acerbic family dramedy’s Oscar campaign mostly fizzled out by the time the ceremony rolled around, earning only two nominations — and one of those was for the perpetually-nominated Meryl Streep, which barely counts. But with an ensemble cast that read like a who’s who of the Hollywood A-list (Streep, Julia Roberts, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, etc.) and a crackling script from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts, August: Osage County certainly seemed rightfully poised for awards season glory following its world premiere to a packed house in Toronto.

The Raid: Redemption

Midnight Madness, TIFF’s annual ode to the offbeat, ensures that genre fare has a prominent place at the Toronto fest right alongside the more stereotypically film festival-friendly offerings, and the program has unearthed some major names since its inception in 1988, including Eli Roth, a pre-LotR Peter Jackson and martial arts superstar Tony Jaa. But for our money, one of Midnight Madness’ best discoveries in recent years came out of Indonesia, featuring a little-known martial art called silat. A bone-crunching, non-stop adrenaline rush of an action movie, The Raid: Redemption went on to an award-winning TIFF debut and put both its previously-unknown lead Iko Uwai and writer/director Gareth Evans on the radar of genre fans everywhere, inspiring at least one sequel and, yes, the inevitable Hollywood remake.

Eastern Promises

As one of Canada’s preeminent auteurs and Toronto’s own native son, David Cronenberg has long been a fixture at TIFF. But after premiering A History of Violence, the first in the director’s pair of gritty crime dramas starring Viggo Mortensen, at Cannes in 2005, Cronenberg returned to TIFF for the world premiere of their even better follow-up, Eastern Promises, in 2007. And the beloved Canadian filmmaker was promptly rewarded with the first People’s Choice win of his career. But don’t just call it a case of hometown favoritism; the excellent and twisty Russian gangster flick earned Mortensen an Oscar nomination, three Golden Globes nods, and near-universal praise from critics and audiences alike.

Blue Velvet

The ultimate cult director’s ultimate cult film, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet unsurprisingly divided critics when it first premiered at TIFF — although he’d go on to score an Oscar nomination for the surrealist mystery-thriller. In the years since, the film’s become commonly regarded as Lynch’s finest, with a legacy that includes launching Isabella Rossellini’s acting career and reviving Dennis Hopper’s, as well as setting the stage for the filmmaker and star Kyle Maclachlan to further explore small-town subversion only a few years later with the universally-beloved Twin Peaks. And to think, it all began with a severed ear and a Toronto movie theater…

The Big Chill

Lawrence Kasdan’s seminal ode to Baby Boomer nostalgia The Big Chill may have helped launch the careers of stars like Jeff Goldblum, Glenn Close and Kevin Kline (along with the modern-day concept of the quarter-life-crisis), but it was TIFF that initially helped launch the future cult classic. After opening the fest in 1983, the movie went on to win the People’s Choice Award, helping spur it to multiple nominations at the following year’s Oscars and Golden Globes. Which is why, when the cast came back together once again to reminisce about the good old days for their milestone 30-year reunion, they did so at — where else? — TIFF.

Dallas Buyers Club

Playing the real-life, homophobic, hard-living rodeo rider-turned-AIDS crusader Ron Woodruff in Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club earned Matthew McConaughey his first Oscar in 2013 — one of the film’s three wins. But it also officially completed the so-called “McConaissance,” a career arc that saw the notoriously laid-back Texas native go from famously drawling “Alright, alright, alright…” in his big-screen debut Dazed and Confused (another TIFF special presentation) to saying, well, the exact same thing during his Oscar acceptance speech. Who says people don’t change?

Borat

Give Sacha Baron Cohen this: the guy knows how to make an entrance. When Borat made its official world premiere at TIFF, the British comedian showed up in character as the gleefully offensive Kazakh TV reporter he’d first debuted on Channel 4’s Da Ali G Show, arriving to the red carpet not by limo but in a horse cart pulled by women dressed as peasants. Despite technical difficulties that delayed the premiere until the following night, the crude, controversial, and above all hilarious satire turned into a massive hit for Baron Cohen — even earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. All while proving that TIFF could be a launching pad not just for Oscar-worthy dramas and art-house gems, but crowd-pleasing blockbuster comedies too.

Chariots of Fire

Chariots of Fire’s iconic theme and that slow-motion sprint along the beach has been endlessly replayed, repurposed and parodied, and it’s widely regarded as one of the most seminal sports movies of all-time. But director Hugh Hudson’s powerful period drama is also an all-time TIFF classic, becoming the first movie to go from a Toronto premiere and People’s Choice Award to Oscar glory in 1981, as the rousing true story of a pair of 1924 British Olympians had audiences cheering on both sides of the border. Winning four out of the seven Oscars it was nominated for — including Best Picture — Chariots of Fire set the bar high, giving subsequent TIFF winners a lofty goal to chase (presumably while listening to that soaring Vangelis score on repeat in the editing room).

Sexy Beast

When Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast first premiered in Toronto in 2000, it marked a promising debut for the former music video/commercial director, an offbeat British gangster flick that was worlds apart from the slick Guy Ritchie-copycats coming out around the same time. Whether it was the movie’s tightly written script or just the joy of watching Sir Ben Kingsley drop the eff bomb seemingly every other word (something he was nominated for an Oscar for), Sexy Beast has since attained cult status among film fans. And even though Glazer’s only directed two more movies in the 15 years since, the indie cred he first earned at TIFF could easily last him another 15.

127 Hours

After winning an Oscar for his festival favorite Slumdog Millionaire, it was pretty much a given that Danny Boyle’s next movie was going to premiere at TIFF. And even though the pared-down 127 Hours was an almost total 180 from Slumdog’s Bollywood-inspired flair, it was no less of a hit with Toronto audiences. Telling the harrowing true story of Aron Ralston, a hiker who survived getting his arm trapped under a boulder from almost 5 and a half days, the film was alternatively hard to watch and impossible to look away from — there were reports of viewers experiencing nausea, dizziness and panic attacks during screenings. But thanks to Boyle’s inventive direction and the gut-wrenching one-man-show put on by James Franco, 127 Hours would go on to be nominated for six Oscars, despite telling a story most other filmmakers would consider completely unfilmable.

Boogie Nights

No offense to the rural Nova Scotia drama The Hanging Gardens, but how Paul Thomas Anderson’s disco-drenched, coke-fueled, ‘70s-set Boogie Nights didn’t win the People’s Choice Award in 1997 is something of a head-scratcher in retrospect. Although, following its world premiere in Toronto, the porn-industry drama had slightly better luck come award season, scoring three Oscar nominations and winning a Golden Globe for Burt Reynolds. Of course, hindsight’s 20/20, and while Boogie Nights was only a moderate success at the box office at the time, it’s since become a major cult hit, making it hard to remember there was ever a time when Mark Wahlberg wasn’t one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, and Anderson wasn’t a six-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker.

Silver Linings Playbook

The 2012 People’s Choice Winner, this crowd-pleasing romantic dramedy from David O. Russell rode a buzzworthy debut in Toronto to an impressive eight Oscar nominations, becoming the first movie since Million Dollar Baby to be nominated for the big five (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay) and the first since 1981 to have a nominee in all four acting categories. Meanwhile, thanks to the strong word-of-mouth marketing that first kicked off at TIFF, Silver Linings Playbook went on to gross over $230 million at the box office, all without a single explosion or talking CGI robot. But it’ll probably best be remembered as the beginning of pop culture’s ongoing love affair with Jennifer Lawrence, who won the film’s sole Oscar as the brilliantly manic love interest to Bradley Cooper’s equally unhinged hero.

Looper

These days, writer/director Rian Johnson’s working on every sci-fi fan’s dream, directing his very own Star Wars sequel. But in 2012, he was just another up-and-coming indie filmmaker looking to make a name for himself at TIFF. And Johnson did just that with Looper, a clever, mind-bending sci-fi thriller starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a time-traveling assassin at war with his future self (played by Bruce Willis). A massive hit with both audiences and critics, Looper’s success made Johnson’s services heavily in-demand (see: above) and had many in Toronto wishing time travel was real, so they could go back in time for the film’s TIFF world premiere just to be able to say they saw it first.

Juno

Juno may have finished second in the race for the 2007 People’s Choice Award (losing out to David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises), but the eventual Best Picture nominee was a crowd-pleaser from the very start, earning a standing ovation following its world premiere at TIFF thanks to its quirky, idiosyncratic script and collection of charming performances. From there, the indie teen pregnancy comedy took off, growing into a legitimate pop culture phenomenon, with a chart-topping soundtrack, four Oscar nominations (and one win for Best Screenplay) and over $200 million at the box office. All while launching the careers of writer Diablo Cody and its star Ellen Page, not to mention significantly increasing sales of hamburger phones across the board.

Moneyball

Movies about underdog sports teams are big business, not to mention classic Oscar fare. Movies about what happens in the front office of those same teams? Yeah, not so much... Still, based on the New York Times bestseller by Michael Lewis, Bennett Miller’s Moneyball rode a successful world premiere at TIFF to become a major contender come Oscar season, with the rave early reviews helping assuage fears that the story about Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane and MLB’s stat-head revolution would be too “inside baseball” to hit with mainstream audiences. Instead, the sabermetrics-heavy story turned out to be far more compelling than any movie about baseball stats seemingly had any right to be, and the timely, well-written drama went on to score six Oscar nominations, including ones for Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and co-writer Aaron Sorkin. Not bad for an underdog.

Leaving Las Vegas

Nicolas Cage movies are alternatively either amazing, or amazingly terrible — the guy seemingly has no middle ground. (See: the following video evidence.) But Leaving Las Vegas is widely regarded as the famously manic actor’s finest, and most understated, performance of his career. After premiering at TIFF, the bittersweet tale of an alcoholic ex-screenwriter determined to drink himself to death in the desert went on to win Cage his first (and only) Oscar, as he and his co-star/fellow Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue turned a pair of tired clichés — a drunk and a hooker with a heart of gold — into so much more.

The Princess Bride

Now a beloved cult classic and regular fixture on “Best Of” lists like this one, The Princess Bride wasn’t a huge box office hit when it was first released in 1987, only later becoming the eminently-quotable comedy it’s revered as today. But Toronto audiences would prove to be surprisingly prophetic when they named the Rob Reiner-directed swashbuckling fantasy film the People’s Choice Winner following its TIFF world premiere. As for making a list of TIFF’s best movies without including this cleverly tongue-in-cheek fairy tale? Inconceivable.

Roger & Me

Technically, Michael Moore’s seminal documentary Roger & Me — about the devastating effect that the closing of General Motors plants had on his hometown of Flint, Michigan — first bowed at the smaller Telluride Film Festival a week prior to playing at TIFF. But when the iconic documentarian celebrated the 25th anniversary of the movie that launched his career last year, he chose to do so in Toronto, where the film became the first documentary to win the festival’s People’s Choice Award. From there, it went on a historic box office run, becoming the highest-grossing documentary ever (which Moore has since bested — twice), with the filmmaker’s anti-corporate rage and inherent showmanship clearly striking a chord with audiences. And while Roger & Me was snubbed when it came time to hand out Oscar nominations, the film’s cultural significance was confirmed in 2013 when it was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry — where Moore’s film will be forever preserved for future generations, right alongside a number of fellow former TIFF films.

Slumdog Millionaire

In the spring of 2008, Danny Boyle’s feel-good, Bollywood-inspired drama Slumdog Millionaire appeared to be headed straight to DVD. Then it played TIFF in the fall, earning a string of standing ovations and the People’s Choice Award, and the following February, the underdog tale was the toast of the Oscars, taking home eight awards, including Best Picture, in a near-sweep. And here’s a quick bit of trivia for you, in case you ever need it on a game show one day: along with Schindler’s List, the crowd-pleasing sleeper hit is the only other film to win Best Picture, Director and Screenplay at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Oscars. So much for straight-to-DVD.

Sideways

As far as cinematic mid-life crises go, a road trip through California wine country is fairly tame. But in spite of that (or maybe because of it), Sideways still connected strongly with audiences both at TIFF and beyond. The festival hit — and People’s Choice winner — became a runaway art-house sensation, earning five Oscar nominations and winning one for Best Adapted Screenplay, while launching the careers of Thomas Hayden Church and Sandra Oh — and inspiring moviegoers across the country to brainstorm ways to sneak bottles of wine into their respective theaters. So long as it wasn’t Merlot.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ang Lee’s martial arts opus Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon didn’t just come out of nowhere to become a surprise box office hit and genuine pop culture phenomenon in 2000, it came out of TIFF. After winning the coveted People’s Choice award, the epic tale wowed audiences with its gorgeously-filmed, expertly-choreographed fight scenes (courtesy of martial arts movie legend Yuen Woo-Ping), going on to become the highest-grossing foreign-language film in American history, winning four Oscars and being nominated for six more.

The King’s Speech

A 1930s-set historical drama about a British speech therapist might seem like an unlikely award season juggernaut, but never underestimate how much audiences (and awards voters) love Colin Firth. On the strength of Firth’s performance as a sweet-natured, stuttering King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as the man who helps him get his stammer under control, the crowd-pleasing The King’s Speech rode a People’s Choice win to an impressive 72 total awards, including seven BAFTAs, two SAG Awards, a Golden Globe, and four Oscars, making it even more decorated than the former King himself.

12 Years A Slave

Maybe it’s no surprise Toronto audiences fell for this People’s Choice — and eventual Best Picture — winner. After all, none other than Brad Pitt played a heroic Canadian abolitionist in Steve McQueen’s period drama about slavery in the American South, based on Solomon Northup’s incredible (and incredibly painful) true-life account. But luckily, there was a lot more to love about 12 Years a Slave than just that: like Chiwetel Ejiofor’s masterful performance as the man who was abducted and sold into slavery, Lupita Nyong’o and her breakout, Oscar-winning debut, Michael Fassbender’s unflinching portrayal of a horrifyingly sadistic slave owner, and McQueen’s powerful, Oscar-worthy direction.

American Beauty

The horrible, crushing banality of the suburbs has been fodder for many filmmakers over the years, but perhaps none quite as successfully as Sam Mendes. Flawless performances from Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning, along with the movie’s darkly comic sensibilities and fourth-wall-breaking narration, helped American Beauty go from the talk of TIFF to the talk of Oscar season, as the film became the second People’s Choice winner to be named Best Picture. And we’re guessing that honor, along with Oscar wins for Spacey, Mendes, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography, was probably way more beautiful to Mendes than any floating plastic bag ever could be.

The Shawshank Redemption

If history’s truly written by the victors, it’s a little hard to believe that The Shawshank Redemption didn’t win the People’s Choice Award when it first premiered at TIFF back in 1994 — instead, that honor went to Antonia Bird’s Priest, a searing (and since-long forgotten) critique of the Catholic Church. But maybe the uplifting tale of the resilience of the human spirit was just a late bloomer, because after a mediocre theatrical run, Shawshank went on to earn seven Oscar nominations. And in the two decades since, the classic prison drama has lived out its own redemption tale, coming out squeaky clean on the other side — these days, it’s widely regarded as one of the best movies ever made and is currently ranked #1 on IMDB’s user-voted Top 250, making it the ultimate “people’s choice.”